The window emits a soft, orange-yellow glow; trails of rainwater race each other across the foggy glass. The rain patters down through the shadows, bouncing off the pavement and rushing down the gutters. He stands with his hands in his coat pockets, his body bent towards the light. His breath creates patches of condensation on the glass, silent against the chinking of silverware and the muffled sound of voices from the other side of the window. A breeze picks up the raindrops and slings them into the man’s back and against the windowpane. Inside the lit room, someone laughs, and the blurry form of a waiter refills glasses. The man picks up one foot and shakes it to get the feeling back, then he shuffles the other one. He bends closer to the window, his body a dark shadow in the darker night. A few paces down the sidewalk, a couple bundled in long coats sheltering under a baby blue umbrella hurry to the door. The woman ducks her head a little as the man opens the door for her; she rushes in – he shakes the umbrella out and follows her. The door closes with a bang. In the brief moments it was open, the smell of a wood fire drifted out; it lingers in the back of the man’s throat, thick and familiar. The tang of rosemary hangs in the wet air for a second, maybe two, but then the rain washes it away.
The man turns back to the window, watching as the couple who just blew in through the door take off their wet coats, and settle down in their chairs. The woman pats her hair, smiling as the waiter comes up to their table. The man removes his glasses, wiping the moisture off them, and smiles at his wife. They order wine; the man outside sees the waiter bring the bottle, and the wine glasses with slim stems. Through the window the wine is dark, almost as dark as the rain-soaked pavement behind him. A car passes by, its headlights catch the falling raindrops in the act, suspending them for a moment in time. Water sprays up from the tires like the waves that jump at rocky shores, lapping into the man’s shoes, and when the rumble of the engine disappears down the street, the waiter returns to the table with a notepad in hand.
The man at the window also takes out a notepad, its yellow pages wrinkled from many rainy nights, and raises an invisible pen in his hand. He mimes the waiter’s movements, turning from right to left as the waiter addresses the couple. They pause when the woman asks a question, her head tilted to one side, and then nod together, the man outside with a ghost smile etched across his wet face – he writes down the woman’s request with air and water. The waiter inside the bright window turns away from the couple’s table, but the man outside pauses, rereading the orders he had penned.
A can of beef stew
Dried apples in a plastic bag
Half a loaf of bread, two days expired
A water bottle – tap water, if you have it, please, not rain
Satisfied, he turns away from the orange-yellow light and into the rain and shadows, carefully tucking the damp notepad into his coat pocket. The man in the darkness lifts an imaginary umbrella up over his head, and strolls down the sidewalk through the wind. When he reaches the corner, and the light of the window has twinkled out of view, the waiter returns with dinner, and the smiling couple’s coats have dried in the warmth.
Emma is a Junior Spanish Education and Writing double major at IWU. She is from Indianapolis, but spends her time on campus drinking coffee, reading, writing, and "oohing" and "awing" over pictures of her cat.